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(meteorobs) Today's Wash. Post on Fireball over Maryland [06 Sep 2001]

Here's the url:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54763-2001Sep6.html?referer=e
mail
on which is a link to some video at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/metro/090601-1v.htm

Text follows:
Old Rocket Lights Sky for Early Commuters
It's a Pre-Dawn Blast From the Past
By Susan Levine
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 7, 2001; Page B01


What goes up must come down, even 26 years later. And the aged Russian
rocket that came down just before dawn yesterday did so with a glowing,
protracted brilliance that startled the early birds who saw it from New York
to North Carolina.

Space junk has never looked so good. As the decaying remains of the 1975
booster reentered the atmosphere shortly before 6 a.m., a huge, pulsing
white ball streaked across the sky over the Washington area. Behind it
flowed a smoke trail thousands of miles long, which the rising sun
illuminated with spectacular drama.

The event not only lit up the sky. It lit up telephone lines at radio and
television stations, at the U.S. Naval Observatory and even at the U.S.
Space Command in Colorado, where throughout the day Army Maj. Barry Venable
patiently answered calls seeking detail and explanation.

"If you're a space object and want to be noticed," he joked, "I guess you
need to reenter on the East Coast at rush hour."

The SL3 rocket was launched by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to carry
a spy satellite into orbit. According to Geoff Chester at the Naval
Observatory, the satellite fell out of orbit in 1992, but the booster -- "a
big empty gas can" maybe 20 feet long and as much as 10 feet wide -- took
its own time in returning to Earth.

In Woodbridge, medical photographer Andy Morataya was late for work and
hustling to his car when he looked up and wondered what he was seeing. The
object was extraordinarily bright in the sky, "as bright as the light coming
off of a full moon," he said, and its single solid light meant it couldn't
be an airplane on a runway approach.

Morataya grabbed his video camera out of his bag and focused. "As I began
shooting, I began to see little particles falling off of it. . . . It just
kept going. It just flew right by."

To the north, Michael Smith, of Annapolis, was heading to meet his morning
running partners. "The astro was arcing the Chesapeake Bay as I was driving
the Naval Academy Bridge," he recounted. Its center was "day-glow white"
against the slate-colored sky, and its cigar-shaped trail lingered nearly 20
minutes. Smith was struck by the surreal image and beauty. "It was the talk
of the group."

Space is filled with this kind of leftover hardware and debris. On any given
day, the U.S. Space Command monitors the orbital movement of about 8,300
man-made objects as small as a baseball. But rarely is the disintegration of
such witnessed by so many.

Officially, the command pegged yesterday's rocket reentry at about 100 miles
off the coast of Delaware. Venable said that little, if any, of the booster
likely survived its blazing descent.

The military had been following the booster closely and predicting its
demise for the past week, although trackers only narrowed their geographic
window to a 6,000-mile zone that reached from the North Pole to South
America. "Reentry assessment is an inexact science," Venable explained, with
solar and climatic variables that can greatly affect a final downward
trajectory.

The command didn't publicize the coming phenomenon, hence commuters' and
runners' early-morning surprise. But satellite observers in the know were
clued in. Three days ago, retired scientist Harro Zimmer began posting his
predictions from Berlin on an Internet site, honing the time and location
coordinates with "alert updates." He hinted that a sighting in the New York
area might be possible.

With his latest message yesterday, he confirmed the rocket's expansive
audience, and though his grammar might have lost a little in translation,
Zimmer's enthusiasm came through.

"Cosmos 756 RB fiery decayed!" he declared.
[end  of text]

The (RealPlayer) video is short and blurry but probably has more info to
experienced eyes than I can derive.  It does show some color, not in the
object, but trees or whatever.

Clear skies to all,
Dale
Miami FL




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